BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 09:20 PM

I'll pay that one. it allows for an 'abstain' vote without voting 'informal' - where you write in 'Mickey Mouse' or scribble obscenities on the paper...

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: Peace
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 11:57 PM

I think it would be a good idea to have every person who is going to vote be able to pass a test wherein they demonstrate a basic understanding of the country's laws, government structure, etc. The test could be given in written, oral or sign language form.

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 05 Mar 06 - 03:42 AM

In some countries with a lower level of reading and written literacy, they use ballot papers with pictures on them.

You wanna vote for yer elephant or yer ass?

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Mar 06 - 05:35 PM

nothing to worry about till the cast of neighbours form a political party.....

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Mar 06 - 06:33 AM

16 year olds are only thinking of one thing and it aint politics

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 06 Mar 06 - 09:39 AM

A minor observation for tarheel:

I VOTE and I PAY TAXES....
so far,the 16 year olds in this country do neither!!!!

The first year in which I paid US Federal Income Taxes I was barely 13. And I'd had to file my return the previous year, and paid Social Security taxes both years.

Although I don't have the records for him, I believe my son filed his first Income Tax return at 13 or 14, but was probably 15 or so before he made enough to actually pay income tax. He very definitely started paying into Social Security before he turned 15.

Neither of us particularly felt the need to vote at such ages though, and I agree with what I sense as the prevailing opinion here that 16 is seldom a sufficiently mature age for doing so.

Im not sure that at 18 people are generally prepared to consider issues and vote rationally, but by then most of the ones that aren't probably never will be.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Mar 06 - 11:37 AM

There is a 16-yr-old boy living in this house. On good days, I acknowledge him as my stepson. He thinks he knows everything, except how to do chores.
Does thinking you know everything qualify you to vote?

Right now, we're negotiating to receive physical labor and a modicum of responsibility, in exchange for occasional use of the car. Negotiations are not going well. We're losing.

Despite all that, I kinda like the kid - but I can hardly wait until he grows into a civilized adult, like my kids are....

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Mar 06 - 01:47 PM

This is very like the arguments about the abolition of the property qualification to vote, the abolition of the university votes, and votes for women, you know. A bit like the rights of "inferior races" to vote. I think we all know how we feel and how we ought to feel about them.

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 06 Mar 06 - 10:15 PM

But none of them caused the complete collapse of Society...

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 05:37 AM

For Joe Offer

"Well, my mom and papa told me
Now you better earn some money
If you wanna use the car to go
Ridin' next Sunday
Well, I didn't go to work
I told my boss I was sick
He said, "You can't use the car
'Cause you didn't work a lick"

Summertime Blues...Eddie Cochrane


Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 06:59 AM

yes they should I mean they are old enough to get killed so they should be able to vote.

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 07:21 AM

16 years olds may join with parental consent, but don't get sent on active service at that age.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: Essex Girl
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 08:55 AM

I don't think it makes a lot of difference what age you can vote at. School children (and that's what the government is striving to make all under 18's) have a lot more to think about than which bunch of hypocrites is better than another. My son (17) is beginning to get interested in politics, mainly because he is studying economics, but when asked about the vote said he wouldn't bother anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: kendall
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 08:36 PM

What does being old enough to get killed have to do with voting? They are not even remotely related.

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 08:39 PM

No. Politicians spend most of their time screwing the people who voted for them. Sixteen-year-olds aren't legally old enough to be screwed. So, if they were allowed to vote all those politicians would be guilty of statutory rape.

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: Cluin
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 08:41 PM

"What does being old enough to get killed have to do with voting? They are not even remotely related."

Yeah, one actually means something.

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: GUEST,Janine
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 02:58 PM

Watch the hidden agenda!
When the age of majority was lowered from 21 to 18, 'Great said the 18 year olds: we can marry without parental consent, vote and do lots of other things'. Including having parties at 18 and 21 as well!' 'But now you have to pay for all things at 18 which were free before till 21,'says the government.
Expect similar.
Janine

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 03:20 PM

There's something to be said for putting off the voting age a few years, to give a chance for people to build-up a bit of pent-up frustration about being messed around with by government, so that when they get tghe vote they see that as more significant.

Forty might be about right. And that stuff about how people inevitably move to the right as they get older is questionable. In the British political scene older Labour people tend to be well to the left of where the party has got to these days. Hence Old Labour, New Labour.

I rather suspect the same would apply with Democrats in the States, especially if you set on one side the essentially non-political cultural matters that are given prominence over hard-core political issues.

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 05:51 PM

"What does being old enough to get killed have to do with voting? They are not even remotely related."

Well, I think the idea is, voting is supposed to give the teenage boys the illusion that they have something to say about whether they go to war or not...

Perhaps a better idea would be to let kids be kids and not allow them to vote until they're 21, and follow Malvina's suggestion and send the Gentlemen of Distinction to the Army.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Should 16 year olds get the vote
From: autolycus
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 07:29 PM

Whatever the age limit (and I like Mrs. Duck's not between 13 and 21, was it?)

             vote should be weighed, not counted.



Ivor